Against the backdrop of spectacular victories of populist parties in recent years, understanding the appeal of populism for people is especially important. A recent strand of research highlights communication as a key element for understanding populism (de Vreese et al. 2018). It combines ideology-centered and discourse-centered understandings of populism, arguing that populist ideas have to be communicated discursively to achieve their intended effects on the audience.
Recently, populist actors have been very successful at communicating their message on social media. The social media has dramatically changed the nature of political communication and public discourse in modern societies, and the social media revolution is an important factor in explaining the recent success of populist parties. Populist actors have been outperforming their mainstream opponents on social media, and have become very apt at mobilizing their followers by perpetually connecting them to a discourse of populist narratives through emotionally charged imagery and framing. Yet, there is surprisingly little research on how populism plays out on the internet (Engesser et al. 2017). This paper will investigate what has made populist communication resonate with users so successfully.
In light of recent developments, particularly the Brexit referendum and Donald Trump’s electoral victory in the United States, there is growing interest in the connection between populism, social media and emotions (Gerbaudo 2018). Research shows that political actors advocating for Brexit were very effective in the use of social media, had a more powerful and emotional message, and were more successful at engaging people than ‘Remain’ campaigners. Emotions are a prominent feature of political discourse (Clarke et al. 2006), and an important part of the populist communication style which bolsters persuasiveness of messages (Bos et al. 2010). Yet, despite the fact that the vital role of emotions play in populist communication has been acknowledged, it is surprising how little we actually know this phenomenon (Brader 2005). To address these gaps in research, and contribute to better understanding of populist communication, this paper poses the following question:
Which elements of populist ideology, style, framing, appeals to emotions (and which emotions), or particular combinations of these, generate the most engagement with populist content on Facebook?
The proposed paper will test whether populist messages that appeal to emotions, especially anger, and particularly when framed in terms of identity/culture, generate more engagement than others. To do so, we will analyze Facebook posts related to immigration and sovereignty, written by relevant political actors during the Brexit referendum campaign. The most engaging messages will be selected on the basis of attention data. Further, a detailed content analysis will capture the actors’ position on the issues, elements of populist ideology reflected in the message, style, how messages are framed, and what emotions they aim to appeal to. Particular attention will be paid to emotions in populist communication. By including a detailed typology of politically relevant emotions in the codebook, this paper will thoroughly investigate populist communication on social media, with and extra focus on the important yet underexplored ‘extra emotional ingredient’ (Canovan 1999) of populism.
